Baseball: Leadoff position one of few questions Red Sox must answer

Spring training has been without controversy for the Red Sox, which with the memory of the Bobby Valentine year still fresh in everyone's mind, is a good thing.

There are some curiosities, though, such as who will replace Jacoby Ellsbury as Boston's leadoff batter. Beyond that, just how important is the identity of the replacement?

There are only two spots in the batting order significant enough to merit their own names — cleanup and leadoff — so having a good leadoff hitter is fairly important, and seems more important now than ever because it is so easy to catalog and quantify offensive production.

It won't be David Ortiz, A.J. Pierzynski, Mike Napoli or Will Middlebrooks. That's a start. It won't be Dustin Pedroia, although it could be. Shane Victorino seems like the best fit, but "best fit" can be deceptive.

Pedroia does not look like a "best fit" for a No. 3 hitter, but Boston won a World Series with him in that spot in 2013. He hit .296 with eight home runs and 79 RBIs batting third last year. Eight home runs from your No. 3 batter? That's an nontraditional approach to writing out a lineup card, but it worked.

Red Sox' lineup cards have been pretty stable at the top for the last decade or so. Johnny Damon held down the spot for four years from 2002 to 2005 and Boston won one World Series with him there. Ellsbury led off for five seasons — 2008, '09, '11, '12 and '13 — and Boston won one World Series.

In 2007, Julio Lugo led off in 82 games of 162, and Boston won the World Series.

Hall of Famer Wade Boggs hit leadoff a lot, although he wanted to bat third. Boggs averaged two stolen bases a year, but averaged 45 doubles, so was on second base a lot even if he didn't have much speed except when beating out ground balls to deep shortstop.

This year's Red Sox will find a capable leadoff hitter, even if he's not born for the spot like Damon and Ellsbury seemed to be.

Seasoned behind the plate

The Red Sox are obviously comfortable with their catching situation, but it does seem like a bit of a gamble to go into the season with a pair of 37-year-old catchers in Pierzynski and David Ross.

Boston has had older catchers than either one, but never two that old on the Opening Day roster at the same time. At one time, 37-year-old catchers were the equivalents of cars with 350,000 miles on them. Carlton Fisk changed that perception, but 37 is still old.

No matter which one starts on Opening Day, he'll be the oldest Opening Day catcher in Sox history. Jason Varitek was 36 on Opening Day in 2009 and turned 37 less than two weeks later. Tony Pena was 36 when the season began in 1993. He turned 37 in June.

Varitek hit .209 in 2009. Pena hit .181 in 1993.

Pierzynski will catch most of the games, or so it is planned, and has not shown the same sort of deterioration that both Varitek and Pena did as they aged. He was a very healthy .272-17-70 with the Rangers last season and while his average has slipped for three straight years, all of his key numbers were better last year then they were when he was 33 in 2010.

Between them, Ross and Pierzynski have caught 2,115 major league games. That's a lot of mileage.

Sticking close to home

Boston may begin the season with six homegrown players in the starting lineup. They would be Middlebrooks, Xander Bogaerts, Pedroia, Jackie Bradley Jr., Daniel Nava and Jon Lester. The Sox also opened with six homegrown players last season, with Jose Iglesias and Ellsbury gone from that group in favor of Bogaerts and Nava.

While homegrown has traditionally been considered the way to put together a team — the pennant winners in both leagues last year were heavily homegrown — the Red Sox have succeeded that way, and also with imports.

Boston's starters in 2004 were all imports, and were again in 2005. The Red Sox have never had a completely homegrown lineup, but came close in 1988 and 1989 when they had nine starters from the farm system. The only import in '88 was shortstop Spike Owen. The only one in '89 was first baseman Nick Esasky.

New task for umps

Referees in football, basketball and hockey are used to making judgment calls. Holding or not, blocking or charging, interference or not —— but baseball is essentially a black-and-white game, so umpires rarely have to think that way.

That will change with the new rules on home plate collisions, and good luck to the umps because the new regulations pretty much leave them on their own.

Through the years, catchers have gotten away with a lot on plays at home plate. The rules have always said they can't block the baseline if they don't have the ball, but they usually establish position before it gets there. This should change that, for the better.

Now, if baseball can only do something about calling more runners out for going down the inside the first base line on ground balls.